Items Tagged: Tape+Archive

Working with the Taneja Group on the Customer Validation report was a true pleasure. We are very happy with how it turned out and have received numerous glowing praises on the quality of the work and value of the customer research findings. Many thanks for creating such an excellent demand generation resource, and for the webinar where you presented the findings of the report. Both assets have become very valuable tools for our demand generation efforts.

Tape Libraries: Why, When and Where?

A technology publication that shall go unnamed posted the news last year that Amazon Glacier was a “tape-killing cloud” and that it would “devastate the [tape] industry.”

Not exactly. We do believe that smaller tape implementations are going the way of the dodo bird. Cloud backup is quickly replacing small standalone tape drives and autoloaders for daily backup, and as low-end tape equipment ages IT replaces it with cloud for long-term backup retention.

However, tape housed in mid-sized and enterprise scale libraries are growing strongly in several high-value computing and industry segments. Thus the question for IT becomes not “Should I use tape?” but “When should I invest in tape libraries?”

We talked to four organizations that have implemented Dell EMC Integrated Data Protection for Converged Infrastructure. The term Converged Infrastructure (CI) refers to an IT solution that groups storage, memory, compute, and networking components into a single, optimized package. When organizations evaluated Dell EMC Integrated Data Protection for CI, a key priority was improving data backup and recovery. To lower their operational costs, they also recognized the importance of having CI that would enable turnkey data protection and reduce their implementation, maintenance, and support costs, as well as improve reliability.

Prior to implementing Dell EMC Integrated Data Protection for CI, organizations we interviewed said they had significant cost, risk, and delay with implementations and upgrades. Several factors contributed to these issues including extensive time spent testing and doing research, compatibility and integration issues, and dealing with multiple support organizations.

All the companies we talked to also wanted better data protection. Many companies were struggling with slow backup speeds, poor storage efficiency, insufficient recovery times, and high operational overhead. To address these problems, companies needed better backup performance, instant data recovery, simplified management, and policy driven automation for both backup and data recovery.

Companies also wanted better vendor support, and they shared a common goal of placing “one-call” for all questions and issues they might have with any aspect of the solution. Success criteria included fast, no-hassle resolution and eliminating finger pointing between software and hardware vendors. Also expressed during the interviews, was the desire to have a vendor that would proactively monitor their system and a team that would partner with them and proactively address their ongoing needs.

Dell EMC customers found that the key to addressing their needs is Dell EMC’s CI, Vblock and VxBlock Systems (now consolidated as one turnkey product called VxBlock System 1000). Dell EMC is a CI pioneer and with Dell EMC Integrated Data Protection for CI, Dell EMC has gone a step further and delivered enterprise-class data protection that is tightly integrated with VxBlock Systems. The result is all-in-one, high performance, highly reliable data protection that is integrated with VxBlock Systems during manufacturing, pre-tested, pre-validated, and fully supported by a single vendor.

It’s an amazing value proposition. There are no point products, therefore less complexity and no compatibility issues. Every company we talked to stated that Dell EMC has exceeded their expectations, and helped them at every phase of their journey from implementation to support.